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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25594252">Reprise</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/UpsideofCrazy/pseuds/UpsideofCrazy'>UpsideofCrazy</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hadestown - Mitchell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>And you will not stop trying, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Kinda?, POV Second Person, Post-Canon Fix-It, Time Loop, You are Orpheus</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-29</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 05:29:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,583</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25594252</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/UpsideofCrazy/pseuds/UpsideofCrazy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p><em>That’s how it goes. To know how it ends, and still begin to sing it again. And we’re gonna sing it again.</em> </p><p>...</p><p>The first time Orpheus leads Eurydice out of the Underworld, he turns around, and he loses her. He turns around the second time too, and the third, and the fourth, but he keeps trying. He keeps trying.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eurydice/Orpheus (Hadestown)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>62</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Reprise</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi all! I have recently fallen in love with Hadestown, and so this is my little love letter to this musical. </p><p>This is stylistically a very different kind of fic from what's typical, but I hope you enjoy anyways! This is very heavily inspired by "Road to Hell (Reprise)," and somewhat inspired by the poem "You Are Jeff" by Richard Siken.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>[<em>Zero</em>.</p><p>That’s how it goes. To know how it ends, and still begin to sing it again. And we’re gonna sing it again.]</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p><em>One</em>.</p><p>The whistle of the train sounds, and you look back to see if she heard it, too. It’s as simple as that, and she is gone.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Two.</em>
</p><p>Your three Furies hound you: Doubt. Fear. Hesitation. Their wings cloud your vision and you are spinning within your own mind and you are spinning outside your own mind and you turn back. Your eyes focus and for a moment you see her. The train whistle sounds, and she fades.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Three.</em>
</p><p>You think this could be it. You grew up believing that three was lucky; that good things came in threes, that good <em>gods</em> came in threes. You should have grown up believing better. Fate is a three-faced woman, and all her mouths are open, laughing without sound as you move forward thinking this could be it. This is not it. You look back.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p><em>Four</em>.</p><p>Maybe you should blindfold yourself. Surely, if you cut out the entirety of the world, it will be easier. You will breathe easier, step easier, make it past that damnable whistle. What you fail to account for, though, is that she is your world, and cutting out the rest of the noise just makes your own heart that much louder. Your eyes are unseeing but your ears are wide open and the song that has been pushing against your core grows overwhelming in its fervency. It is changing. It is a siren’s drumbeat pulling you back, back, back into her eyes. You lower your blindfold because you have to know if she hears it, too, and the whistle breaks the beat and you are alone once more.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Five.</em>
</p><p>This time, you don’t even make it to the whistle. This time she trips, and you shouldn’t be able to know that she trips but you do, and you turn, and you help her to her feet as she dissolves in your arms with a soft smile.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Six.</em>
</p><p>Here’s the thing about the Fates, you think as you doggedly move forward. Your eyes are locked ahead of you, your feet taking careful steps towards where you know Spring is coming. Here’s the thing about the Fates, is that they weave a loose tapestry. The story remains the same, but the threads can be plucked here and there. Once upon a time, you liked to imagine yourself a tapestry. Now, you wish beyond belief to be a thread: small, malleable. You wish, too, that the woman behind you might be a thread, and that you might entangle yourselves together for good as one small, forgettable part of some grand tapestry: overlooked and thus safe, together. A bird passes overhead, and it sings a sweet note, and the song at your core echoes the melody, and you are distracted. Your eyes follow the bird backwards. A whistle sounds. She disappears.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Seven.</em>
</p><p>If three wasn’t lucky, you sure as hell don’t think seven will be either, except that you do. Except that you are an optimist, and you see the world for what it could be, and you see that seven could be lucky. You could make it in seven, both you and her. The whistle sounds, and you do not look back, and seven could be lucky. Seven could be so, so lucky. But you are an optimist, and this is not a rose-colored world. It is black and dusty and dry, and luck does not shift the stars in the sky, and luck does not keep you from turning when you think you have made it past that glittering golden gate into a better life, but you are not there yet. You realize this when she smiles at you and it is a sad smile and the world bleeds out around the two of you until you cannot see her anymore, cannot see anything anymore. Maybe it is lucky you get to keep trying. Maybe it is cruel. Maybe it just is.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Eight.</em>
</p><p>You wonder what it would be like to give up. That must be an option, right? To stop. To stand still, and let her stand still behind you, and exist in the knowledge that you are together like this. And then you are disgusted at yourself for even thinking that could be an option, and you are turning to apologize to her for something of which she is not even aware, and you both fade out. You are a long ways from the whistle.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Nine.</em>
</p><p>This time, you do everything perfectly, and you still fail. It is her fault this time, if you were to be cruel and assign blame. It has been your fault every other time, though, and it was your fault at the beginning, and actually it is probably your fault this time, too, because she tugs on your sleeve to tell you something and the strings of your lyre catch on the buttons of your coat as you turn around to face her. A low note sounds, and it is familiar before it is overpowered by a whistle, and then there is a silence. Then there is something beyond the silence, but you do not exist in this moment long enough to hear what it is.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Ten.</em>
</p><p>You know exactly when the train whistle will sound. You know the steps you have to take; you know how the gravel will crunch beneath your feet, how the soot will stain your shoes black, how every single time you will imagine her quiet breathing behind you. How every single time your mind (your three Furies, your Fates) will twist that sound into an emptiness; the quiet sucking of something being pulled from existence. Maybe she is simply the wind; maybe you have been leading a breeze around all this time. Maybe you have imagined it all: the wall, the song, the flower. That is what you are good at, isn’t it? Imagining. Hoping. The breathing behind you picks up as your breathing picks up and maybe it is not an emptiness at all but a fragment of yourself. Maybe you have been leading yourself this whole time; the bard, the jester, the fool. Maybe you have imagined her. That thought is too terrible to withstand and so you turn five paces before you know the whistle will sound and she is there. She is real. The song in your core thrums a beautiful bar as your eyes meet. Then she is gone, and so are you.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Eleven.</em>
</p><p>You are so tired. You are so tired, and you trip, and she is the one to catch you, this time, and she tells you that it is alright, that she knows you are trying, and she is trying too, and then she fades. The whistle echoes out into the quiet.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Twelve.</em>
</p><p>There is a god for everything but this, you think. There is no god of lost causes. But there is a god of travelers, and maybe that is close enough, and so you send another prayer out into the ether where Hermes is sitting somewhere among the thieves and the wanderers. You hope he hears it. You have travelled so long. She has travelled so long behind you. She is behind you. You know this, and yet you also do not know this. You do not know anything. You know everything you need to. You know you need to turn, and you know you need to keep moving forward. There is a war raging inside you of all the things you know and all the things you know you do not know, and there has only been one victor so far. But you will keep trying. She is behind you, after all. You know this. You turn to make sure.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Thirteen.</em>
</p><p>You turn.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Fourteen.</em>
</p><p>You turn.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>Fifteen.</em>
</p><p>You turn.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>It has been a millennia. It has not yet been a month. It has not yet been a day. You have walked forward, and she has walked forward, and you have turned back. The whistle has sounded time and time and time again and it has drowned out the quiet melody inside your core. You know what you need to do but you also know what you need to do and your mind is split in two and you turn.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>You turn.</p><p> </p><p>…</p><p> </p><p>The song at your core reaches a crescendo. It has been building and building, and you thought you knew the beat, the melody, the rhythm, but it has evolved into something new: something you, and something her.</p><p>You hum this new melody, and you loosen the threads.</p><p>A whistle sounds, but it is hollow. You sing louder, and you hear a quiet voice behind you start to sing that same song, but you do not turn to look. You know, now. You keep singing, and she keeps singing, and you do not turn back. You pass below an archway, and the world grows golden. She steps to your side, and then she steps to your front. She turns. The world fades away, but she stays. You stay. You are facing forwards, and that new song is filling the air between you, tumbling forth from your lips and her lips and the world sings it with you. You do not know this ending. You do not know this song. You do know this song.</p><p>It is a duet, and the two of you sing it again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoyed the style of this fic! Now I'm off to go listen to "Road to Hell (Reprise)" a hundred more times.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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